The British Higher School of Art and Design (BHSAD) is a partner of the University of Hertfordshire (UH) running six validated BA (Hons) programmes. Upon successful completion of studies BHSAD students are eligible to receive academic awards issued by the University of Hertfordshire and identical to those provided for UH graduates. Our students can transfer freely to UH and return back for any semester during their studies.

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The Natural Light Baseline

To differentiate that role from that of "key" modeling when a modeling source moves behind the object it is typically called a "rim" or "accent" light. In portrait lighting it also called a "hair" light because it is used to create the appearance of physical separation between the subject's head and background.

When a photographer puts the sun behind an object its role in the lighting strategy changes from modeling the front of the object to one of defining its outline and creating the impression of physical separation and 3D space a frontally illuminated scene lacks.

To differentiate that role from that of "key" modeling when a modeling source moves behind the object it is typically called a "rim" or "accent" light. In portrait lighting it also called a "hair" light because it is used to create the appearance of physical separation between the subject's head and background.

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Creating Natural Looking Artificial Lighting

A typical studio lighting configuration will consist of a fill source to control shadow tone, a single frontal key light to create the highlight modeling clues on the front of object facing the camera over the shadows the fill illuminates, one or more rim/accent lights to create separation between foreground and background, and one or more background lights to control the tone of the background and separation between it and the foreground.

There are two significant differences between natural lighting and artificial sources. One is the character of the fill and the other is more rapid fall-off in intensity. In nature skylight fill is omni-directional and usually brighter from above. That "wrap around" characteristic is difficult to duplicate with a directional artificial source.